Category: Awards

Comedy and award shows never seem to work together. Award shows, by nature, are full of themselves, even when being “irreverent.” The American Comedy Awards has been dead for nearly three years now and Comedy Central’s attempt to supplant them with the first annual “Commies” has fallen faster than the actual Commies did.

The web is picking up the slack, online (and soon to be print) stand-up comedy zine Two Drink Minimum has just named it’s “Goddammies,” which is like a Christmas list for comedy geeks (including the Seinfeld DVDs and the Lenny Bruce CD Box Set). The focus on stand-up sees rewards for new faces (Last Comic Standing’s Jessica Kirson), comebacks (LCS’s Kathleen Madigan), dirtiest (nearly-LCS’s Jim Norton) and, perplexingly, hottest (Dane Cook and Sarah Silverman, who are too good looking to need LCS).

Though Two Drink’s selection are already completed, Cringehumor.net is still taking nominations for their year end awards on its boards. The CringeHumor crowd loves darker comics, considering them to have more integrity. So don’t expect to be suggesting the most attractive comic. And best of all, you can indulge your angry impulses and share the “awful comedian of the year” and the “worst moment in 2004.” To give you an idea of how different the two sites are: Jessica Kirson has several nominations for “awful comedian.” If you’re just as opinionated, you can make nominations here.

I normally can’t stand award shows… self-congratulatory excess is one of Hollywood’s worst traits, but awards for comedy writing went exactly where they should (and needed) to go. I’m hoping Arrested Development‘s Best Comedy Emmy annoints it as the next Seinfeld, with the subsequent ratings explosion to follow. And in some ways, I wonder if that’s exactly what the voters were thinking too. The show definitely deserves it, but as far as I can see, that doesn’t factor too much in voters’ decisions. Everyone imagined that Sex and the City would get it, as congratulations for such a great run (no matter how much limping to the finish line they did). But with so much concentration on how network TV comedy is over, giving an award to a comedy that was over or nearly over (in the case of Raymond) would have been acknowledging the genre’s best days were behind it. Even if this was a factor, Arrested was the best sitcom on TV last year. Period.

As for the best part of the show, the parody of the Swift Boat Veteran Ad written by the Daily Show writers was amazing. If you missed it, Wonkette has a transcript of it here. Congrats to the Daily Show and its writers (particularly buds Jason Ross and Rob Kutner) on their second Emmy. Also highly-deserved.